July Is Social Wellness Month!

Thanks to Elizabeth Scott, black-rose-bielefeld.de's Guide to Stress Management, I recently learned that July is Social Wellness Month. What exactly is social wellness? It involves your ability to interact effectively with the people around you. Good communication skills are an important part of social wellness, but so are creating strong social relationships, respecting yourself and others and developing a solid social support system.

So why is social wellness important? Clearly, having healthy social relationships is vital for your own mental well-being. For example, researchers have found that signs of poor social wellness such as loneliness can lead to anxiety, depression, increased stress and cardiovascular disease. In addition to benefiting your own well-being, social wellness also has positive effects on the people in your life and the community as a whole.

So what can you do to improve your own social wellness? Here are just a few ideas:

• Take a Social Assessment Quiz to discover which areas you might need to work on.
• 
  
• Try reconnecting with an old friend, or consider forming some new friendships.
• 
  
• Work on your communication skills. Practice speaking in public or work on improving your nonverbal communication skills.
• 
  
• Be kind and tactful in your social interactions. Spend time listening to other people.
• 
  
• Learn how to deal with conflict by practicing some effective conflict resolution techniques.

Connect With Kendra: Facebook | Twitter

_{digitalskillet / iStockPhoto}